The determination of beta-aminoisobutyric acid in urine of normal and cancer patients.

Beta-aminoisobutyric acid (βAIBA); a degradation product of thymine in both deoxyribonucleic (DNA) and transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNA) was determined in single urine specimens from 65 normal healthy subjects and 60 patients with cancer of various organs by thin layer chromatography. The normal control value from both males and females was 74.01+25.81 nmol βAIBA/µmol creatinine. The excretion levels were significantly increased in patients with several types of tumor (146.79+137.64 nmol βAIBA/µmol creatinine). Increased levels of βAIBA excretion may reflect changes in DNA metabolism or increased turnover of tRNA in tumor. The changes of βAIBA excretion levels were also studied in cancer patients before radiotherapy. The levels returned to normal when they were in remission but remained high in patients whose clinical conditions were not improved. The same results were also found in patients with choriocarcinoma during chemotherapy. Therefore, determination of urinary βAIBA level could be used as a potential biological marker for monitoring the effectiveness of therapy in malignancies.

Oral-yeasts’ incidence of normal people and patients with oral carcinoma.

Using a swab technique, the oral cavities of 436 control volunteers (age between 6-70 years, 287 males, 149 females) and 228 oral-CA patients (age between 6-81 years, 167 males, 61 females) were sampled and cultured carriage was approximately 3 times greater in females than in males in age group 20-70 years. The yeast isolates were Candida albicans 68.12%, C. krusei 9.37%, C. parapsilosis 7.71%, C. tropicalis 7.23%, Trichosporon sp. 3.65%, Torulopsis sp. 2.88% and C.quilliermondii 1.04% respectively. The oral-Capatients sampled, 46.9% were positive for yeast or yeast-like fungi. The species of yeasts and percentage found were not much different from the normal control, there were C. albicans 68.05%, C. parapsilosis 10.1%, C. stellatoidea 5.25%, C. tropicalis 4.95%, Torulopsis sp. 3.9%, C. krusei 2.9%, Candida spp. 2.9%, unidentify yeasts 1.3% and Rhodotorula sp. 0.65%. Difference could be seen in the carriage rate which was approximately 4 times greater in patients with oral-Ca than in normal volunteers.